They were gone. Norah thought it was but natural, at first, that Patrick should be sad, for the interview which she had witnessed made her unhappy too. But she was not well pleased that his gloom continued. Weeks and months passed, and still Patrick had not resumed his former light-heartedness. Nor did there appear any indication of its return to him. The wedding day, to which he once looked forward with continual expectation, and of which, at one time, he daily spoke, he now seemed to dread and scarcely mentioned. And when he did speak of it, it was with a forced appearance of interest. Norah was offended at his coldness, and as he did not press, as formerly, a positive and early date, you may be sure that she did not increase in impatience for the nuptials to which Patrick appeared to be growing daily more indifferent. He thought her ungrateful that she did not duly estimate the sacrifice he had made for her; and she considered him weak-minded that he had over-estimated his affection for her, and undervalued his own kin, and was now repenting. Patrick was indeed more miserable than he had ever been in his life before. Not a word had he heard from his connections in many long months; and what Ellen said to him under the tree before his father’s door, now haunted him—“Shall we plough the seas while you cling to her apron-strings? Will you be easy in your bed, when the mother that loves you is tossed on the sea, and the sister that toiled for you is drowned?” By day these words haunted him, and by night his mother and sister rose out of the sea to come to his bedside. And truly, when he waked in a cold perspiration of terror from these visions, it was hard to persuade him that they were not true; and that the sea had not verily given up its dead to reproach him.

“Norah, dear,” he said at length one evening, as they sat alone, “my heart is broke, so it is.”

She answered with a look in which deep sorrow mingled with all her old affection. Nor did she resist, when he drew her to his side, and placed her head against his bosom. He felt that he could not say what he must when her eyes met his. So she nestled lovingly to him while he sat long in silence. She guessed, but would not ask, what he wished to say, and at length he continued:

“Every morning when I wake it is to hear what they said to me, when I wouldn’t go with them. And every night when I lie down, sure the clatter of that leave-taking drives sleep away. And when the eyes shut for very weariness, and I have cried myself into a troubled slumber, it is no rest. Sometimes my mother comes to me, Norah, and sometimes my sister. I know that they come from the deep, deep sea, for they are all dripping wet. Never a word do they say with their mouths, but their eyes, Norah. God save us, what was that?”

Norah had caught his contagious horror, and clung closer to him, as they both shivered with terror. It was many minutes before Patrick could resume his narrative, but after a trembling pause he proceeded:

“They come to me, Norah, and I know it’s them. When I wake, don’t I feel the cold water of the sea chilling my temples? The saints save us, Norah, from such visiters to our bridal bed! You think me changed and that my heart is turned, and my manner is unkind—but, Norah dear, what will I do, what can I do?”

“It’s all your sick fancy, Patrick—and maybe your conscience is not easy,” said Norah, shaking off the spectral influence of Paddy’s dreams. “It’s all your own notion, Paddy dear. Your mother and all of them are well and happy—barring that they feel the loss of you as much as you do their absence. And I know their consciences are not easy, Patrick, for the hard words they said to you must leave a deep wound in their own hearts. You must go to them, Patrick.”

“What, Norah, and leave you!”

“And why not? Sure, Paddy dear, you’re not worth a body’s having now, and that’s the truth. You are not the same lad that you were at all, and what will I do with such a man? It’s a long lane that has no turn, and all will come right by and by.”

“Norah!”

“Well!”

“Wouldn’t you go with me too?”

“Sure I thought you’d be asking that, Patrick. Ellen said you were selfish—and wasn’t it the truth she said! Will you change the load from your heart to mine? Haven’t I a father and mother, and sisters too? Will I give them up and go away, because you can’t give yours up? It isn’t reason, Patrick.”

In vain did our hero strive to alter Norah’s determination. Her arguments were unanswerable, and he was fain to submit. After many days’ irresolution he resolved, but still not without doubts and misgivings, to follow his parents to America. The resolution was taken, the spectral appearances which had annoyed him ceased. He was half-tempted to retreat from his purpose, but Norah gave him no encouragement, and his nocturnal visiters threatened to renew their visits; so that he was fain to adhere to his resolve, and take a steerage passage to the great entre-pot of the New World—New York.

Great was his amazement upon arriving there to find that it was a place so large, and one of many large places; and that to inquire for his family there was of as little utility as it would be to ask for his master’s dog in Dublin. It was a sad trial to Patrick that he had come to a strange land, he verily believed, to no purpose. But it was necessary for him to do, or starve, and finding employment he worked, with a heavy heart it is true, but not without hope. Chance—or we should better say Providence—directed him to a priest, to whom he related his difficult position and almost extinguished hopes. The kind father was struck with his tale, and, after a moment’s pondering referred to his record of priestly acts, and sure enough, there he found the name of Ellen O’Brien—O’Brien no longer!

“Mighty easy it was then, for her to come over,” shouted Pat, forgetting his Reverence. Fine talk hers to me about selfishness, and drowning, and all that. Very pleasant it was, no doubt of it, to write and read them long letters. But it has given me the first trace of them anyhow, and that’s something.

With this clue the persevering young Irishman was not long in tracing the party to their late stopping-place—late, for they were there no longer. He followed to Albany, and there again lost the scent; for a party of poor emigrants are not so easily followed. Again he heard of them in Buffalo; away, it seemed to him, at the verge of the world; and again he pursued.

“Sure he would find them now,” he said, “if it was only to have a fly at that traitor, Ellen—God bless her!”

In Buffalo he was once more disappointed, for from Buffalo they had flitted also. “It’s the Wandering Jew Ellen has married, no doubt,” he said, “to lead me this dance, and she to rate me so. Wait till I find them once more.”

Time would be unprofitably spent in tracing all poor Patrick’s journeyings, including many an excursion from the main routes. Wherever the sinews of his countrymen were busy upon public works and other enterprises, in which the labor of the sturdy Hibernian is found so valuable, there Patrick wandered—and patient perseverance at last was rewarded. He had traced out an impromptu village on a rail-road truck, where the delvers had put up cabins which they would sorrow to leave. As he looked curiously through the little settlement, he was startled to hear his own name shouted, and in a moment more one of his many brothers had him by the neck, with a hug as stifling as if he had taken lessons in the new country of one of those undisputed natives—the black bear.

Patrick had much ado to stop his brother’s clamor, that he might surprise the others. And he was astonished moreover to find little Phelim, for he it was, with a Sunday face on in the middle of the week. This mystery was solved when they reached the cabin; for there was a gathering in honor of the first Patrick of the new generation, who had that day, during the priest’s visit in his round on the works, been first empowered to answer to his name like a Christian.

“It’s this you were up to, is it?” shouted Patrick, bursting upon them. “I thought it wasn’t entirely to make Phelim a president, and Michael a djuke, that you come over!”

Tears, shouts of laughter, frolic, pathos, poetry, and prose most unadorned, made up the delightful melange at that unexpected meeting.

——